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The Upstream Cause of the Youth Mental Health Crisis is the Loss of Community
(www.afterbabel.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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I don't think the definition of community is necessarily problematic. It centers on hierarchy and authority, yes. But even most anarchists recognize natural hierarchies. Parents have authority over children because children are not able to govern themselves. Community elders have authority within a community because of their age, experience, and the respect they've earned through longstanding ties to the community. When you need specialized information, about law, or medicine, or how to repair a car, or the difference between right and wrong, you go to a specialist who studied that field and you defer to their authority derived from their study and knowledge. And so on.
Everyone in a community is, or should be, equal as human beings. But not everyone has served the community equally or earned equal respect. Voluntary hierarchies based on duty and respect are not the same as involuntary hierarchies based on coercion. And it's those voluntary hierarchies that bind communities together.
Just because someone has more skills, experience or information doesn't mean that person has or should have authority over others. There are even situations where having more of those things can become a hindrance because it biases the person to doing things a certain way when someone from an outside perspective could handle the situation in a different, possibly better way.
It still should be on the individual to decide whether they want to defer to the experts depending on the situation. The reason why people can come to collective decisions and rely on other people's knowledge is because they have shared purpose and trust each other to be working to similar goals. That is what makes people's choices voluntary.
I don't believe we should uphold hierarchies in any form instead we should help teach people to reason through when to trust other people's judgements which doesn't rely on defaulting to an authority.
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